Gravity is an essential part of life. Without it, things would drift away into space. Likewise, gravity is an essential part of marriage. Without marital gravity, spouses begin to drift apart. And if they drift too far apart, it can bring an end to the marriage.
In my last post, I talked about four things you needed to increase your marital gravity. They were four things that would help draw you closer to one another and keep you from drifting apart. (Check out my last post, “Is Your Marriage Approaching Zero Gravity – Part 1.”)
In this post, I want to continue that thought by giving you four more things that will increase your marital gravity and keep you and your spouse from drifting apart:
- Appreciation. When it comes to keeping gravity in your marriage, showing appreciation is one of the easiest but least used tools in a couple’s toolbox. Showing appreciation is so powerful, because we all want to feel special and significant. When you show appreciation to your spouse, it boosts their significance and importance both as a person and as a spouse. Who doesn’t want that?
- Sex. Yeah, I know this sounds like something a husband would say, but just because a husband and wife have different views on sex doesn’t mean it’s not important. In fact, research shows that sexual satisfaction is related to marriage satisfaction. When sexual satisfaction goes down in a marriage, so does marital satisfaction. Sex is just as important to marital gravity as finances, career choices, or anything else. Husbands and wives don’t have to agree on sex, but they have to work on it if they want it to work for them.
- Safety. Is your marriage a safe place for your spouse to share ideas, disagree and talk about their desires without being met with criticism or sarcasm? Is your marriage a safe place for your spouse to try new things without being made fun of? Is your marriage a safe place for your spouse to show emotion without being corrected or stifled? If not, then your marriage is not safe and marital drift is eminent. Your marriage relationship should be the safest place in this world for you and your spouse. If it’s not, make sure you’re doing your part before you start criticizing your spouse.
- Commitment. No marriage is going to hit everyone of the above markers 100% of the time. That’s where commitment comes in. Commitment is the ultimate glue that holds the two of you together. At times, marriage can be like a bull ride at the rodeo. It can feel like everything is trying to buck you off and out of your marriage. When that happens, you need the kind of commitment that wraps its hand around the rope, grits its teeth and holds on till the end of the ride. It’s this kind of commitment that keeps you together and gets you through difficult times.
Finally, notice I didn’t add children to any lists of things that increase marital gravity and keep spouses together. Sometimes struggling spouses believe that having another child will bring them together. But it’s a big misconception that having children helps to keep a marriage together. If it were true, no marriage with children would ever suffer divorce…and we know that’s not true. Raising children is a difficult and taxing experience, which often leads to more marital friction than marital gravity.
The things that increase gravity in your marriage and keep you and your spouse together are things like those listed above. They are the things that are exclusively between the two of you.
So, if you’re starting to feel a little weightless in marriage, you need to do the thing(s) that will build your marital gravity.
This is Major Tom to ground control. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
Are you feeling the pull of gravity, or are you starting to feel a little weightlessness in your marriage? Which of the four things above do you most need to work on? What’s one thing you could do in that area to increase your marital gravity and draw you closer to your spouse?
Copyright © 2017 Bret Legg